The primary goal for our design team on the recruitment marketing team was to find an interim solution that benefited internal marketing, recruitment and IT departments while improving the “digital” look and feel of our site for our desired consultant audience. This included:

• A mobile optimized website designed to target the growing number of students/recruits using that medium
• Reorganized information architecture to make content more easily discoverable
• Closer tie in with Bain.com based on a large percentage of referral traffic corporate content
• Utilize a Bain utilized/supported content management system for faster updates and content control

Project Team

As the UX Project Lead, I drove the entire research and design journey, guiding the team from initial concept to product launch. This included revising the information architecture of the new website, creating wireframes/prototypes, conducting usability testing, and communicating efforts to department and team leads.

Additional team members I collaborated with included a UX Content Writer & Designer, a Product Owner, and a Development Lead to execute across goals and objectives for the website.

---

The Design Process

The overall design process including reviewing current platform restraints, gathering quantitative analytics on website metrics, presenting design solutions to key business stakeholders, creating wireframes, conducting usability testing, and hosting training sessions for the global recruitment team so they are informed when they present information to potential recruits for the company.

Evaluating Current Platform Constraints

• Website managed by HTML files directly on the server, requiring a high technical knowledge to make simple updates that can only be published live twice a day
• No content inventory making it difficult to find and reference existing site content or multimedia
• Disconnected from global brand and overall digital strategy

Presenting Design Strategy Options to Stakeholders

The following strategy options I presented to key business segment stakeholders after conducting the website quantitative analysis and speaking with product owners across multiple teams including IT, Recruiting/Design, and Corporate Marketing.

Ultimately I was able to convince stakeholders to move forward with my recommended design plan, which was to migrate the design of the Recruitment website to the corporate website, utilizing the existing design system and content management system. This allowed us to expedite the process, and save money by not having to create new custom templates that would have taken longer with additional resources.

Creating a Project Methodology and Timeline

Beginning in November 2015, this project lasted approximately eight total months with the new website design launching in July 2016. Below is a table of completed activities that show how we followed a design thinking lead process, focusing on quantitative analysis, internal stakeholder feedback, and usability testing.

Phase	Activity	Description	Completed
Research	Competitive Analysis	Understand competitor offerings on school recruitment and consultant profile pages	November 2015
Research	Stakeholder Interviews	Meet with current consultants employed at Bain to understand their journey as they went through the recruitment process	November 2015
Research	Quantitative Analysis	Utilize google analytics and other platforms to understand key content areas and user behavior	December 2015
Prioritization	User Flows	Create diagrams showing the path users typically take when researching and applying to Bain	December 2015
Prioritization	Prioritization Plan	Prepare initial draft of planned design releases for business stakeholder review	January 2016
Design	Wireframes	Starting with low-fidelity concepts, iterate and lead to pixel perfect high-fidelity wireframes that communicate user actions	February 2016
Design	Design Shares	Collaborate with internal recruitment and marketing teams to ideate solutions	February 2016
Design	Content Development	Collaborate with content writer to populate wireframes with updated and new content	March 2016
Testing	Plan and Recruitment	Write and review usability script to test usability of the prototype while engaging business leads to identify and recruit the best and relevant consultants and stakeholders for product testing	April 2016
Testing	Usability Testing	Gather an accurate sample of users to test the usability of the clickable prototype based on planned scenarios	April 2016
Testing	QA Testing	Review performance of page, evaluating for any technical issues that would impact launch	May 2016
Design	Wireframe Updates	Synthesize usability findings and make any design updates based on feedback from users or business stakeholders	May 2016
Development	Agile Development	Collaborate with development team to discuss product backlog and address issues with data or design during the process	June 2016
Development	Design Resources	Create internal documentation for recruitment teams and schedule demos to engage recruiters with new resources available	June 2016
Development	Website Demo	Create presentations and host webinars for global recruitment teams walking through value add of new website changes	June 2016

Wireframes/Prototypes

Usability Testing

Goal: To understand how the newly designed careers website presented information future recruits would be looking for, and ways we could improve the user flow and content.

Setup: 60-minute virtual sessions hosted on WebEx by UX Moderator and Observer.

Process: Participant first had a structured research section, answering questions focusing on their previous experience with the old recruitment website. We then provided users with a link to the new careers website prototype, giving them prompts and asking users to find answers on their own. In the last section, I moderated users through a guided tour of the prototype, focusing on individual sections of the website to ask targeted questions that would help impact our final designs.

---

Outcomes

• A better mobile experience with recruits able to quickly access and find content thanks to responsive design components
• Improved information architecture that minimizes the time needed to be spent finding priority content
• Consistent branding experience between corporate website and careers content
• Easier method of content management with implementation of corporate marketing design system